The Barbers wrote:
>
> Hi Bob,
>
> I have the 4160MT. Without the IDE, I got power, but just a black
> screen; didn't get too far. Again, this thread is dead.
>
> However, after I got everything running, then I disconnected the IDE
> drive as you did and yes then everything started up. So it is some sort
> of Starmax Tanzania voodoo with a low battery combined with no IDE drive
> or ......?
>
> What model of Starmax do you have?
>
> Bill
>
Thanks Bill,
I'm using a 3000/200MT with a sonnet g3 to klutz around with.
Based on what was implied, I took the machine which seconds before ran
with the original drive @ 8.1. Swapped the drive with a non-mac
formatted ide drive and started it up. I got both screens lit (it has
two screens running ordinarily) but the cursor locked up.
I disconnected the drive, put in a OS9 CD and started it; no trouble, I
selected the CD disk in the control panel and then rebooted it with the
test ide drive attatched. This time when the screens appeared, I wiggled
the mouse to watch the cursor. It froze 3 seconds into the sequence.
There may be something wrong with this test drive that screws things up,
but each of 3 IDE drives that I used successively that was mac
formatted came up fine under the CD reboot. I don't have time right now
to grab a working windows drive and try this--and I'm a little reluctant
to use something with useful files for an experiment.
The thread may be dead, but my tiny brain whirrs on.
1) I would intuit that keeping Mac and windoze drive parameters in the
PRAM would be too troublesome, so the ability to read windoze storage
devices of any sort would be a bit further up in the system and
available after a stable desktop. (?)
This is somewhat validated by needing a "bootable" whatever to start--I
mean to get past the moment when the blinking ? appears. I might call
that a pre-start position which means everything below in the PRAM is OK
and the machine is ready to read something.
2) I haven't tried all the combinations, but a floppy with no ide and
no cd brings up working screens, a working cursor and an icon with an X.
This means there was a good pre-start.
Here with the test drive; I clearly have had good pre-starts without it,
but something gagged the machine when it sniffed at the test drive, so
it goes no further and locks up.
I'll need to try a working drive from a PC to expand my small neural
unit, but let me wander ahead in think-aloud-land (2 steps away from
cloud kukuland):
I think that your max didn't start because of the IDE drive. If I were a
mac designer choosing what to have in ROM, I might plan for the machine
to start under a HD, but if no HD, to look to an emergency or bootable
floppy, or the CD. I don't think the order matters much, if it ain't
there, it ain't there. (And a lot of macs didn't come with CD's,
remember the good old days?).
Therefore, the ROM gets loaded clean and virginal when the soft start
keyboard or front panel button is pushed. It looks around for the place
where it gets proper instructions--for the clues that make a disc "bootable."
If it finds nothing in anything, you see a blinking icon on the
"pre-start" screen (Oh, oh. I'm using it as a word now).
If it sees something "unbootable" in any type drive, you get the x of rejection.
Does that sound reasonable?
Now I think ROM looks in PRAM as well all through the startup attempt.
If something is screwed up along those ascending chains of checks and
loading sequential stuff that I know nothing about, the ROM-initiated
sequencing gets locked up there. And what we see either on the screen,
or in some further operation, is that point of specific corruption.
If the corruption is lower than the pre-start screen, you don't get a
screen, you just get power up. If the corruption is even lower, you
don't get power up either because it is a soft-start operation that
depends on "software" somewhere in the real bowels of the beast.
The corruption would be perhaps some single "address" inside PRAM that
is looked to for some function. (This is me speaking in parables.) The
corruption may even have a random quality, but more likely it happened
somewhere for some reason. Once there, it gives us trouble and will
continue until it is corrected. Corrections can include that it's being
overwritten in the ordinary course of things.
Up in the world of the system, it happens all the time, so we reinstall,
rebuild desktops, throw away preferences. etc. as workable corrections.
We even have an interrupt or reset buttons on the panel front.
Down in the bowels however, everything is basic and primal--and they
obviously don't want us down there as evidenced by the CUDA button being
hidden inside.
We're allowed to zap PRAM from the keyboard or a program, but the
foolproof no-corruptable-software stuff is there at the button. However,
it is my observation that proper voltage must be available to reset PRAM
through the CUDA button. A bad battery means it doesn't get reset. A new
battery and the button is fine; indeed that's what they recommend when
changing the battery--it takes care of any former corruption, noticeable
or not.
If we push the button with a low battery, we're on a gerbil wheel we
can't get off. It won't clear it. And if the sequence has a corruption
at some particular point of many possible points, that explains the many
different "unfixable" symptoms that different owners endure.
Woven all through our troubleshooting headaches of any sort is the
complexity of the OS. Not only are there many thing to go wrong, many
subtle interactions of far spread chunks of the system go wrong. It can
be a nightmare and it speaks to the robust design of the Mac that we do
as well as we have been.
I must suggest that your IDE drive fix was coincidential to the more
basic problem of the PRAM. I can't explain how it happened and I mean no
criticism, but it doesn't fit in my brain case based on what I tried in
pursuing my test drive scenarios.
Ooooops. My watch says quarter to 10k, so I gotta hang up now. (No pun
intended--or maybe just a little one.)
Bob Wulkowicz
--
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